Random Developments

The Long Tail
Chris Anderson

This book emerged from an article published in Wired in October 2004, which followed onto a blog while the book was being written (and the blog goes on, of course). The main point, as described in the original article, is that the digital economy and the amazing increase in the amount of choice offered to consumers are ending the era of “hits” and “blockbusters” and allowing consumers to have their most unusual tastes satisfied. This is where the subtitle of the book (”Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More”) comes from: instead of selling large numbers of units of a few “hit” products, businesses are increasingly selling less and less units of more and more different products.

The main examples centre around entertainment, as this is an “easily digitised” industry. For example, the amount of music tracks available on iTunes or Rhapsody is much, much larger than what is offered by Wal-Mart, and every single track sells - even if only once or twice a quarter. It may look like selling one unit of a product every three months is not much of a business advantage (especially if you’re not selling 767s, but a product that costs $0.99); but, when you have close to a million different “products”, the amount of money you make on hits will be seriously challenged by the money you make on “non-hits”. Wal-Mart can’t offer this many tracks because it costs too much: each track (actually, each CD) has to earn enough to pay for the space it uses in stores and distribution centres, and thus only the hits get displayed. A digital business does not have this problem.

The book contains several case studies of “long tail” companies (Amazon, Google, Rhapsody, among others), and goes to lengths to show that consumers like choice; every one has non-mainstream tastes, and these are usually not catered for by “normal” retailers. “Long tail” businesses do cater to all tastes, but an important point is made: choice is useless - harmful, even - if the consumer has no way of finding what he wants and assessing its relative quality. Hence the success of recommendation engines such as found in, for example, Amazon.

Chris Anderson, of course, does a much better job of talking about this than I do. The book is very well written, very entertaining and filled with well presented and well analysed data. Like Anil Dash, I had read the original article and had been following the blog, so I was a bit worried that reading this book would simply give me more of the same (or just plain the same); that’s not so. The book nicely complements both the article and the blog, and is essential reading to anyone involved with/interested in business - digital or not.

Space shuttle Discovery landed safely last night (23:14 Melbourne time, 9:14 in the morning in Florida) at the Kennedy Space Center, ending mission STS-121. The mission achieved all its stated objectives, and the shuttle came back in perfect form, despite worries about a leak in a power unit (and the earlier worry about white markings on the heat shields).

It is expected that this will revitalise the shuttle program, with more lauches happening in the next few months. The next planned mission is STS-115, which will again deliver components to the Internacional Space Station. It will be the 19th shuttle flight to dock to the ISS, and it has no launch date set at this moment.

Why are the mission numbers in the wrong order? STS-121 has just landed; the last mission before that was STS-114, and the next is STS-115. Well, mission numbers are assigned when the mission is planned, years in advance. Intervening events can, and often do, change the order in which they are actually executed. A full list of missions, ordered chronologically, can be seen in NASA’s Mission Archive (note that, within each year, missions are ordered from last to first).

The guys at Progressive Boink have collected (a while ago) their 25 favourite Calvin & Hobbes strips in a single page, with comments. I’m not too sure my personal favourites would be the same, but some of them certainly are there; the raccoon storyline, for example, and anything involving snowmen and Calvin’s dad.

Worth a look before they get their cease-and-desist letters.

There’s a great video available in the website of the current shuttle mission (STS-121): it is the view of the launch from the camera mounted on the side of one of the boosters, looking towards the shuttle’s wing.

The video shows the launch, climb and separation, and keeps on following the booster falling back to Earth until it gently lands on the ocean and stays there, bobbing up and down, waiting to be rescued.

To view it (Windows Media only), go to the STS-121 main page and click on “Right Forward Solid Rocket Booster Video” on the right column, underneath “Related multimedia”. Or, if it’s not there anymore, try clicking here.

This is probably old news in most of the rest of the world (or at least in Britain), but… Doctor Who is back on the air! The new series, with the new doctor, will start on ABC this Saturday (tomorrow, 08 July) at 7:30pm.

It’s a bit sad that they had to change doctors after just one season; I hope the new one manages to keep the series entertaining.

The shuttle has reached orbit with no problems, as I reported yesterday; now, external examinations of the heat shields (using a remotely operated camera) show that everything seems to be ok with the ship, and that it should have no problems during landing.

In one of the few “comic relief” moments of the last weeks at NASA, officials reported that white markings found on the wings of the shuttle seem to be bird droppings, which were already there before the launch and are expected to burn on re-entry. It is entirely possible that bird droppings made it into orbit in previous flights as well, but they wouldn’t be noticed; the shuttle usually sits on the pad for quite a while before launch, and it makes a very large target for birds. The only difference is that people are paying much more attention to the shuttle these days…

STS-121 was launched today (04 July, Eastern US time) with no apparent problems, despite a crack in the insulation foam having been found days earlier. Discovery carries seven astronauts and will deliver supplies to the International Space Station; it will also test several newly-developed safety procedures.

This was the first shuttle launch in over a year, and a lot was (and still is) riding on it. A serious problem, if found, will almost certainly end the shuttle program with no new vehicle to replace it, which would severely affect the (already delayed) cronogram for finishing the ISS. Should a problem be found in the insulation while the shuttle is attached to the ISS, the plans call for the astronauts to be rescued with other vehicles (possibly the remaining shuttle, Atlantis) and for Discovery to be landed by remote control.

You can track the shuttle’s location in real time here. It will probably be interesting to look at this tracking during the ISS docking maneuvers.